Samsung Galaxy S4 to expand touchless gestures

Posted February 7, 2013 - 15:48
by
Trent Nouveau

Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S4 smartphone will reportedly expand the use of touchless gestures.

According to Korea's DDaily, the handset is likely to be equipped with an Atmel chip capable of processing gestures within the range of the screen without the need to actually make physical contact with the display.

As Phandroid's Kevin Krause puts it, think of the touch gesture capabilities as an advanced version of Sony's "floating touch" system.

"Samsung will likely attempt to recreate many of the same features of the Galaxy Note 2′s Air View functionality, but the new sensor would eliminate the need for a stylus to make it happen," said Krause.

"We can also imagine gestures such as 'flicking' above the screen to scroll through pages or home screens. If the system catches on, expect to see it in future Samsung handsets moving forward."

In related mobile news, it appears as if Samsung's wildly popular Galaxy brand is becoming synonymous with Google's mobile Android operating system.

And why not?

"Between Samsung and Apple, the two companies account for somewhere between most and more than all the smartphone profits," explained Eric Ravenscraft of Android Police.

"However, even when you look at products that we assume are doing very well (because they are!) like the Nexus 7, Samsung is still taking the lead. You'll notice in the chart above that the most used Android tablet that isn't a Kindle is the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0. That's more than a little astounding."